By Helen Vendler
Published: 1980
A collection of book reviews and essays on more than forty modern American poets.
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Helen Vendler is an acclaimed American literary critic, poet, and professor, renowned for her insightful analyses of poetry. She has published several notable works including "Part of Nature, Part of Us: Maintaining a Romantic Poetry" and "Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats". Vendler's writing is characterized by its rigorous attention to language and form, as well as its philosophical depth, making her a prominent voice in contemporary literary criticism.
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